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Monday, December 5, 2011

C/2011 W3 (LOVEJOY) - Kreutz Sungrazing Comet

Cbet nr.2930, issued on 2011, December 02, announces the discovery of a new comet (discovery magnitude 13) by Terry Lovejoy on three CCD images obtained each on Nov. 27.7 and 29.7 UT with a Celestron 8 0.20-m f/2.1 Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector (+ QHY9 camera). The new comet has been designated C/2011 W3 (LOVEJOY).

The comet appears to be a Kreutz sungrazer, a family of sungrazing comets that are named after German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz who first studied them in the details. These comet fragments passes extremely close to the Sun at perihelion and usually they completely evaporated during such a close approach.

This is the first ground-Based discovery of a Kreutz Sungrazing Comet since 1970!!

We performed some follow-up measurements of this object remotely from the GRAS Observatory (Australia - MPC Code E03) on 2011, December 04.7 through a 0.10-m f/5 reflector + CCD.

Our image of comet C/2011 W3 (LOVEJOY):

Below you can see an animation showing the fast movement of the comet in the sky. Each frame is a 30-second exposure. Click on the thumbnail for a bigger version.

The comet is now rapidly brightening but seems intrinsically faint. It may not survive its close perihelion (at 0.0058936AU, which is a little over 1.2 solar radii) passage on December 16th that will bring it within 880,000 km of the center of the Sun (comet C/2011 W3 will pass just 180,000 km from the Sun’s surface).

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Comets & Asteroids news

Welcome to our Astronomy blog, devoted in particular to Comets & Asteroids and related topics. This blog is maintained by Italian amateur astronomer Ernesto Guido, particularly active in the study of the small bodies of the Solar System.